Copley an influential figure in San Diego arts scene

Helen Copley, former publisher of The San Diego Union-Tribune, was close friends with Katharine Graham, the legendary publisher of The Washington Post. And during their visits, Copley’s son, David, became acquainted with Graham’s son, Donald.

Although the two newspaper heirs were friendly, David Copley would complain that whenever he ran into the future CEO and chairman of The Washington Post Co., Graham only wanted to discuss newspapers.

“In his experience with Don Graham, that’s all Don wanted to talk about,” said attorney Harold W. “Hal” Fuson, a close associate of the Copleys for three decades. “Should we reduce the web width, that sort of thing.”

David Copley, however, wanted to have a different conversation. He wanted to talk about trends in contemporary art, musical theater and film.

“The arts were an outlet for a side of his personality that was very strong and that his newspaper role didn’t allow,” said Fuson, who was chief operating officer of parent company Copley Press when David Copley sold the Union-Tribune in 2009.

Copley, who died in a car crash after an apparent heart attack Tuesday, had the newspaper business thrust upon him. He followed a singular path set by his grandfather, Col. Ira Copley; his father, James S. Copley; and then his mother, Helen Copley. When she died in 2004, she left her only son a fortune — including the Copley newspaper chain and the Union-Tribune — valued by Forbes several years earlier at nearly $1 billion.

But where the newspaper was his profession, the arts was his passion. He and the family foundation donated to a wide variety of causes, from the San Diego Crew Classic to the new downtown library. But it was in his support of arts and culture where he was a transformative and involved presence.

When the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego first contemplated a downtown space across the street from the Santa Fe Depot, Copley contributed more than $500,000 for the project’s main gallery.

He later joined Joan and Irwin Jacobs as the primary, multimillion-dollar donors for the museum’s further expansion into the depot’s former baggage building downtown. He also donated and helped raise millions of dollars for the La Jolla Playhouse, the San Diego Symphony, the Museum of Photographic Arts and other San Diego arts institutions.

“He was pleased to be partnered with the Jacobses,” said Hugh Davies, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego whose position was endowed by David and Helen Copley. “And I think he was quite proud that we as an institution had pulled off this expansion. It never would have happened without his generosity and leadership.”

Copley’s interest in art apparently came through his family, although not necessarily his parents. Frank Kinney, his uncle on his mother’s side, was a watercolor artist and commercial illustrator. His artwork may be familiar to anyone who visited La Casa del Zorro resort in Borrego Springs when it was owned by the Copleys. It adorned the hotel’s luxurious guest rooms.

William Copley, his father’s adopted brother, was a better known, well-regarded artist who also ran a gallery in Los Angeles.

“David was very, very cognizant about that history, even though William Copley and James Copley had a terrible falling out. … But David knew all about William Copley and in fact collected his work,” Davies said.

Although Copley’s collection of the work of famed installation artist Christo is world class, he also had wide-ranging, eclectic tastes and possessed pieces by Andy Warhol, John Baldessari and David Hockney, among others. Davies considered him a particularly discriminating collector.

“He had a very good eye,” Davies said. “He could have been a curator or a very successful interior designer. He had that ability to have very positive relations with creative people.”

If a career in the arts was out of the question, Copley was determined to be more than a passive collector of art, even though he was painfully shy. He made a point of becoming involved in the lives of the artists he admired, including Christo and his wife and partner, the late Jeanne-Claude, whose friendship with Copley dated back to the 1970s.

“When Christo needed something for a project like the ‘Gates of New York,’ he would just call David,” Davies said. “He’d say, ‘We’ve got a payment coming up, is there any work you’d be interested in?’ And David would say, ‘Just send me some images.’ And then he would write a check and make sure those projects happened.”

The morning after Copley’s death, Christo made another call — this time to Davies, and this time, in tears.

“Christo said, ‘I can’t believe this has happened. I’m devastated,’ ” Davies said. “He said, ‘Let me know when the memorial service is — I need to be there.’ ”

At the La Jolla Playhouse, Copley was also unwilling to sit on the sidelines. He was involved in the development of the Playhouse’s 2008 production of “Memphis” and became one of the producers for the show when it moved to New York. It ultimately won four Tony Awards and as a producer, Copley shared in the Tony for Best Musical.

“He was very interested in what’s new and what’s next,” said Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley, who characterized Copley as one of the Playhouse’s most generous donors. “I think that’s why he had such a connection at the Contemporary Art Museum and the La Jolla Playhouse. He was a really modern guy.”

As “Memphis” took shape, Copley became good friends with its composer David Bryan, who worked on the score while staying on Copley’s yacht, Happy Days. Copley enjoyed entertaining close friends and artists on his yacht, which frequently was moored off the chic Caribbean island of St. Barts. Occasionally, he would open it up to a wider circle, including his fellow board members at the Museum of Contemporary Art when they were in Miami for that city’s renowned art fair. He arranged to have his yacht nearby and invited them on an evening cruise.

More commonly, however, he hosted more intimate groups, such as a gathering on his yacht last summer where the San Diego Symphony’s music director, Jahja Ling, was invited to join Copley while visiting Monte Carlo. Also on the guest list: Copley’s friends film director Jon Landis and his wife, costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis (whose connection to Copley was apparently responsible for him donating $6 million to UCLA’s costume design program).

“He was a very shy, private person himself, but he really enjoyed celebrity and famous people in a sort of a Warholian way,” Davies said. “He drew energy and excitement from being around them. And he was generous and a good friend. Nobody threw a better party than David Copley.”

At times, those parties at the Copley estate in La Jolla were thrown for the benefit of cultural organizations such as the Old Globe or the San Diego Symphony, which in recent years has worked to bolster its relationship with the individual whose family name is on the orchestra’s concert hall.

“It was an amazing event,” said the symphony’s director, Edward “Ward” Gill, of a fundraiser at the family estate, where Copley again partnered with the Jacobses. “It was as good as anything I’ve seen in New York or Los Angeles.

It was completely over the top. And it raised a half-million dollars for our educational programs.”

Whether the symphony or any other cultural institution or nonprofit will get additional funds from Copley’s estate is unknown.

Although he was valued by Forbes in 2006 at $1.2 billion (making him number 645 on the richest Americans list), the recession, losses in the newspaper’s assets and operations, and its sale at an apparent discount (the sales price was variously estimated between $25 million and $50 million), make it difficult to access his net worth.

All anyone will say for sure is the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego will receive his Christo collection, instantly making it the largest repository of Christo’s work in the United States.

But Fuson, his longtime associate and now board chair at the Old Globe, believes Copley and his family have already made their biggest contribution.

“They are a legacy family that has, as a result of the nature of their business and the relationship of that business to this community, been able to do things over a very long period of time to make their mark on so many organizations and so many individuals.

“Whatever may happen in the future, regardless of how much it is and wherever it goes, it can’t be considered as anything more than kind of a footnote to several lifetimes of generosity and commitment.”